


Reset

by ExquisitePumpkin



Category: Persona 3, Persona Series
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Are there even fans of this series anymore?, Bisexual Character, Character Death, Depression, F/F, F/M, Half of this was written at 3:30 AM just saying, Homophobia, Internalized Transphobia, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Mental Health Issues, Minako and Minato are the same person so, Misgendering, New Game+, Pretty much me just rubbing my trans gay hands all over this fandom, Shinjiro doesn't die, Slow Burn, Time Shenanigans, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Transphobia, no one is happy, purposeful misgendering, trans minato, until they are
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 05:23:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10960572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExquisitePumpkin/pseuds/ExquisitePumpkin
Summary: She shouldn't have gone back, not when everything was wrong inside herself and she already knew one hundred times over what would play out in the coming months. Still, she knew that he knew she was lying to herself, and maybe that was all that really mattered.ORThat one depressing fic where Minato is trans and gay and has been through multiple New Game+ files.





	Reset

**Author's Note:**

> *Throws this at you* This is literally just me projecting everything into a fanfic. Also I use female pronouns for Minato at this point in time because he's still not quite accepting himself. Believe me, I've been through it too...
> 
> Also is anyone is this fandom anymore? I'd like to know if I'm just projecting to nothing.

She clutched the light, over-the-shoulder bag close to her chest as she stepped out of the train and into the frigid night air of the station, no one following her off or walking through the gates that barred her path. The moon was large and warped in the sky, and it all but blinded her when she looked up to glare at it. She scowled. She should have known better.

 

She felt as if her feet had irons tied to them, and her shoulders were as stiff as a board, but still she forced herself to continue onward, even as everything turned dark and distorted and _green_. She quickly wrestled on her headphones. They were pink. She despised them. And the music grated at her senses as she averted her gaze downward and just walked.

 

She skirted around a static pool of blood, staring at her own face reflected in red as she passed. It was surly and the eyes looked dead, but there was a certain kind of doll-like beauty that she _could_ find attractive had it belonged to another. On herself it just made her want to wretch. Disgusting.

 

Her foot was stopped with a hollow _bump_ , echoing through the empty night as she looked up and faced crimson wood. She gulped, then skipped around it in feigned nonchalance, her grip tightening and sending sharp nails into the soft flesh of her palm. She didn’t feel a thing.

 

The coffins were the worst part. They just stood there in place of a real person, unmoving and without purpose. She wanted to knock on them, break into them to let the person free, but she was never sure a person would truly emerge. Maybe it was for the best.

 

The music blared, but still the girl managed to drown it out as she walked a path that was so familiar—oh so familiar—and yet new. She blinked away the thought and the tears, and continued walking. She didn’t need a flyer this time to tell her where to go, so she scrunched it up in her free hand and let it brush away in the wind. Her eyes drooped. She shook her head to wake herself up.

 

She just needed to keep walking.

+

The building loomed over her like Death, and she forced the thought away once again. What did _she_ know of Death? She wasn’t dead. She was alive. She was... With a grunt, she forced the door open, grumpily stomping into the lobby and preparing for the worst. A boy sat coyly at the counter, a lazy smile on his lips as he peered at her through hooded eyes. He always gave her the creeps—always? What was she thinking about?

 

“Hi,” He said, and a name flashed through her mind, but didn’t quite stick. Her mouth was dry and she was struck with a sudden pang of absolute _familiarity_ , but she just clenched her fists again, growling lowly under her breath. He said no more as his smile widened and a mirthful little snicker escaped his lips, his long, thin fingers pushing forward a piece of paper that had too much writing with too little meaning.

 

The signing of her name was a swift affair, something she tried not to think too hard about or else risk sending thrums of loathing through her entire being. The two names she had gone by her whole life were supposed to mean something—give her an identity that was solely hers—but all they did was remind her of everything that had gone wrong, so she tended to block them out. Nicknames were better—made it easier to pretend everything was fine and that she didn’t yearn for a maternal embrace.

 

“Arisato Minako,” The boy mused, a mocking little glint in his eye. She couldn’t hold the gaze because _she knew that he knew_ and that wasn’t something she could accept. Not now. “Will you take responsibility for your decisions this time, I wonder?”

 

His words were loaded, and Minako turned with a short ‘humph’ through her nose. The boy let out a quiet chuckle, and it was softer than she expected it to be, almost caring and concerned. She heard a small thud as he slid off the counter, and gentle fingers pressed in between her shoulder blades. She tensed with a halting breath, but all the boy did was rub small circles into her back, cooing softly in that comforting way a mother might.

 

“We’ll speak soon,” The boy said softly, his words resounding through the smoky air before the pressure between her shoulders ceased and he, too, become nothing. Minako sighed heavily, her eyes downcast, but her gaze shot up at the weighty sound of footsteps getting closer. She closed her eyes.

 

“Who’s there?” The voice was faltering and so disgustingly anxious, and Minako cringed. Her eyes opened, and she saw a girl. Pretty. Strong arms. Holding a gun—no, not a gun. It wasn’t a gun. She held it up and it wasn’t aimed at Minako, but tilted towards herself just slightly. Her hand shook, “Stay right there!”

 

Minako held the flickering gaze of the other girl steadily, _daring_ her to take a shot. She was stopped by a commanding boom that wasn’t quite a shout. It exuded control, and even Minako had to stiffen again under the weight. It was beginning to become a habit.

 

In that short moment, the world reverted; the green dissipating and lights turning on again. The digital clock on the counter ticked over to show 12:01 on the face that resembled the blood-stained world perhaps a tad too much. The pretty girl blanched, and quickly snapped the not-gun in its holster. Her cheeks burnt pink.

 

Minako looked to the new girl—woman would be a better way to describe her—with the same steady gaze, and they took the conversation to the collection of sofa’s in the same room. She didn’t pay attention, she was far too tired to care, and she mumbled out short responses to the questions asked by the pretty girl—Takeba—and the woman—Mitsuru.

 

She followed Yukari, didn’t feel the need to claim her room, rushed through the conversation, then slammed the door on her way in. The room was just how she left it, sparse and without much sentiment—except she’d never been there in the first place? Minako glared, then trudged towards the mirror to wash up.

 

The water was cold on her face, and she blinked the droplets from her lashes. She certainly wasn’t crying. The mirror showed a face. _Her_ face, she reminded herself loosely. Her eyes held dark bags, but the colour wasn’t much changed in the mirror than the puddle of blood. She was always told they were _brown_ , because red was _evil, sinful._ Of course, after a while the words became meaningless. Maybe Minako was evil.

 

Her brown hair was a mess and pulled up into a gross little ponytail that boys would find cute when they saw it. She gave herself a mental note to cut it short and dye it black. But that thought gave way to nothing as she stumbled to the bed. It was pink and girly and disgusting.

 

Minako passed out before her face hit the pillow.

+

Minako was roused from slumber by a loud knock at her door, and she let out a groan as she slid off the bed. Her eyes still felt heavy, and her cheeks were stained with salty dry lines from the night before. She still felt like death on two feet, but she plastered on a shy smile and opened the door.

 

Takeba stood there in a pretty little uniform, with a pretty little bow tied around her neck. Minako wondered how easy it would be to choke herself with it. She wasn’t listening to what the girl said, was too busy wrestling on a new skirt and throwing her winter jacket off. She didn’t worry about the flustered girl; they were girls, they were supposed to be fine with this sort of thing. Maybe.

 

Still, she couldn’t trust herself to get dressed alone.

 

“Mitsuru-Senpai told me to show you around today,” Takeba stammered after finally collecting herself somewhat. Minako only nodded slowly, not bothering with a worded reply. She knew what was going on, she didn’t need to speak.

 

The ride to school via the monorail was relatively peaceful, all things considered, and though Takeba talked, it hadn’t annoyed Minako quite as much as it had the night prior. Maybe she was just tired, maybe she needed to calm herself down. She needed to make friends this time if she was going to have a chance.

+

Minako wasn’t paying attention to the principle and whatever it was he was saying, she was honed in on the boys talking about her as if they didn’t know she was right behind them. Her fists clenched and she attempted to divert her attention to the pain, but each word was like nails on a chalkboard as they talked about her, or rather, her body.

 

It was much the same when she met the young man who towered over her (though doing that wasn’t very hard). Minako didn’t like him at first, he was tall and flirty and made her feel small, but soon the jokes came out. And she laughed.

+

Rumours were abound that day, but Minako revelled in the lack of company as she walked through the gates of Gekoukan High. She hadn’t realised it the day before, perhaps she was too caught up in herself, but the school was huge. It was as if, for the very first time, she’d found something outside herself that stuck. She didn’t make many friends last time, she never really bothered to, but she was suddenly overtaken with an urge to do better. She needed to succeed.

 

Minako slept through her classes; she was too tired to even stay awake, but when she walked through the dormitory doors that night she was stopped dead in her tracks. The acceptance had given way to pure rage, and she tried not to glare at the aging man seated on the single-seat sofa staring down at a notepad in his lap.

 

Minako held her tongue through the false friendship the man tried to convey, and shook with the need to punch him in his stupid, knock-off-Jesus face. Mitsuru noticed the anger, but didn’t press the issue when she commented on it. That was one thing, at least, that Minako was appreciative of.

 

She quickly went to bed afterwards, too tired and angry to say anything else.

+

“Master… Arisato Minako,” Minako opened her eyes to find she was standing and staring into the large eyes of a hunched man with a stupid grin on his face. Still, for some reason she felt comfort, safe. Yet she wanted to yell out, scream that that wasn’t her name but she clamped her mouth shut. The man gave her a pitying look.

 

“Welcome to the velvet room, dear guest,” Minako didn’t feel like much of a guest, “That was… Your name, correct?”

 

The man—Igor—gave her a knowing look, and she forced herself to shake her head. Then… What was it? She couldn’t say. Igor merely sighed, then extended his hand out to her holding a neat little key.

 

“You already know what this is for, correct?” Minako nodded, and took the key in her fingers. It was warm and she felt calm upon the touch. With a sigh, everything went dark again.

+

Minako couldn’t remember her dream when she woke up, though she knew she’d had one. Something that involved a lot of blue, and a… key? She shook her head, and all but fell out of bed. She didn’t need this today, particularly after the night prior. Nevertheless, she quickly got dressed into another uniform and went to school.

 

She met Junpei at the gate, and they talked about sleeping in class. Minako smiled, and the taller male gave her a goofy grin. It sat well on his face, and she could never imagine a frown on it. It just wouldn’t look right. Her smile turned into a grin in and of itself, mirroring Junpei’s as they trotted through the gates. Everything would be perfect, if not for the little voice nagging her about something sitting at the back of her mind…

 

“Have you come here before?” Yukari asked with a wide smile, and Minako jumped, then laughed nervously. She shook her head, looking around the small stadium of a mall that probably didn’t get much traffic during the day. It felt nostalgic, like it was an old home for her, except at the same time she didn’t want to be there.

 

The day was quickly over and she fell into bed without changing. She didn’t want to think about the moon looming overhead, or the green that would follow, despite the little voice pleading for her to _just stay awake_. She succumbed to her need for slumber.

 

Yukari yelled out for her to stop as Minako pulled her up the staircase, naginata held firmly in hand. She had been going through each day without thought up until this point, and she knew that needed to stop. She knew what was coming, knew that she couldn’t just ignore it and pretend to be a normal school kid any longer, no matter how much she tried.

 

They were on the roof long before the creature emerged, the mask it held leering at them pitifully. Yukari panicked, dropped the gun, was lying weakly on the rooftop just like so many times before, but Minako wasn’t scared. Not as she brought the gun up to her temple, not as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, not as the words formed on her lips and she pulled the trigger.

 

_“Orpheus!”_

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry for this. *dies*


End file.
